


Reclamation

by Aloysia_Virgata



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s06e18 Milagro, Episode: s07e15 En Ami, Gen, Movie: Fight The Future, Post-Episode: s09e16 William
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 07:37:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13290153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aloysia_Virgata/pseuds/Aloysia_Virgata
Summary: Five Times Dana Scully Said No





	Reclamation

**Author's Note:**

> Hastily conceived and hastily written.

**I.**

“And I think that takes care of the departmental budgets for the year,” Assistant Director Skinner says, turning off his laser pointer. “We good?”

Mulder fires a rubber band into a trash can. “Capisce.”

Skinner nods, shuffles a few pages on the overhead projector. Scully glances at him sidelong, through a fall of her own hair. He intimidates her, though she senses that he is kind. It is daunting, still, to have an FBI badge and be at FBI meetings. Scully makes a list on her legal pad so that she doesn’t twist her fingers or chew her pen. _Romaine lettuce, chicken breasts, tea bags, spackle._

“Agent Scully?” Skinner says, turning to her. “Anything we’ve forgotten? We’ve got about a thousand dollars left in discretionary expenditures. If you need something, ask. I’ll hold any surplus in reserve for your partner’s….antics.”

Her partner bats his lashes.

She stares at the figures projected on the wall, endless rows of numbers that chart out the year ahead. Her eyes glaze and she squints to mask it.  “Umm,” she murmurs, wanting to contribute something. Afraid to disappoint with either silence or foolishness.

“Get her a nice bone saw,” Mulder chimes in. “I don’t want the other pathologists picking on her. Additionally, I saw a Bacon of the Month club that looks outstanding.”

“Mulder, shut up. Scully, could you use a saw?”

“Any facilities I use come equipped, sir. It’d be wasteful.” She chews her lip, considering. This choice feels strangely weighty, Solomonic. If she gives a wrong answer they’ll know her for a fraud. “I’d like a desk,” she decides, and it feels right.

Mulder makes a noise of derision. “A _desk_? We share my desk when we’re stuck down there. I vote for the bacon, then. We’ll go halvsies with you, sir. It’s more than fair.”

Scully sits straighter, adds _blotter_  and _picture frames_ to her shopping list. “A desk,” she repeats, assertive. “It’ll be a bit cramped, but it’s impossible for me to keep my things organized.”

Mulder groans. “There won’t be any room to move, but we can put them really close together face to face, maybe we can play some Battleship.”

Skinner makes a note on his pad. “Her father’s a Navy man, Mulder. She’ll kick your ass at Battleship.”

A flush spreads up her cheeks and she smiles, pleased. “You can pick up a set of Battleship too, sir.”

Skinner chuckles and it warms her. She has passed.

Mulder mouths _bacon_ , but Scully shakes her head.

**II.**

It feels as though her teeth are being ground into powder by the tight clench of her jaw, thick saliva sour on the back of her tongue. She feels her nails in her palms, feels her heart in her throat. Her life, her whole life, is here in this room and these people can tear it away. She’ll have to go crawling to some third rate coroner in a squarish state, some awful lab with clogged floor drains and fluorescent lighting.

She swallows, steels herself. “And I also have reason to believe that … there may have been some involvement by Special Agent In Charge Michaud.”

Jana Cassidy, that cold bitch, stares at her with frank condescension. The other faces are closed, impassive. “Those are very serious allegations, Agent Scully,” Cassidy observes.

As if she isn’t aware, as if she doesn’t understand what’s at stake. “Yes, I know,” she replies softly.

Cassidy peers at her. “And you have conclusive evidence of this? Something to tie this claim of yours to the crime? Because I have to tell you, the current belief of this panel is that having you and Agent Mulder together is foolhardy at best and dangerous at worst. Our recommendation is transfer effective immediately. Salt Lake City.”

Sweat stings the nail marks in her hands, prickles the back of her neck, beads on her lip. She feels her feet in her shoes, her clothing against her skin. She is shaky and afraid, but ready. “I believe I do, Assistant Director Cassidy.”

Scully crouches down, withdraws a thick manila envelope from under the chair. She steps forward, handing stapled packets to each member of the firing squad. The Gunmen have not sent her to this fight unarmed. She just has to say it all.

Scully gulps. “Page one indicates that Special Agent Michaud entered the room alone, against protocol. The placement of the device meant that energetic disruption was impossible, but SAC Michaud did not have his cutter with him.”

Cassidy’s eyes narrow. “And how do you know this?”

“Because it was with Special Agent Lavoie at the time, ma’am.”

“And how do you kn-”

“If you turn to the diagram on page three,” Scully continues, raising her voice, “you’ll see a diagram of the IED. Please note that I have highlighted the time-delayed fuses that run through the plastic tubing to the blasting caps. Due to the construction of these fuses, some complete sections were recovered from the blast site. As I stated, energetic disruption of the IED was impossible, and it would have been prudent for Agent Michaud to have -”

“Agent Scully!” snaps AD Santorelli, the old bastard. “Where are you acquiring this information? TEDAC hasn’t released the-”

“- tried to defuse it by removing what appear to be the non-electric blasting caps, in order to circumvent what looks like a collapsing circuit, but it’s evident that no attempt was -”

Santorelli is on his feet, roaring at her, and Scully’s knees feel like jelly, but she shouts back “TAGGANTS INDICATE THAT THE NITROMETHANE AND ASTROLITE WERE STOLEN FROM-”

Cassidy bangs her fist on the desk and the room is silent once more, except for Santorelli’s panting and Scully’s blood pounding in her ears.

“Salt Lake City,” Cassidy chokes out. “And you’re damn lucky to get that instead of a prison sentence, given a clear violation of federal-”

“No.”

Gasps. Stares.

“Pardon me, Agent Scully?”

This is it, this is it, the other was the distraction to draw their fire. “No,” she says again, more confident. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m continuing my work with Agent Mulder.”

An incredulous bark of laughter from AD Freidrich. “Young woman, you will apologize to the members of this panel, turn over your evidence and your sources, and pack your bags.”

Can her heart beat this hard, this fast, without giving out? Perhaps it’s why her head is swimming. Her throat is thick and parched, her eyes burn. She is going to faint, she is going to have a stroke, she is going to die.

“No,” she repeats. “These aren’t the only copies of this information. I have a dozen more, safe with friends, all packed and ready to go out to major news organizations on the event of either my say-so or my disappearance.”

The faces before her are appalled. They had expected her to plead, to grovel, perhaps even to bark. They had not expected her to bite.

“This is an outrage! This is-”

“Too soon after Oklahoma City,” Scully interjects, feeling steadier. “People have a lot of questions. And this latest bombing in Dallas….why is there no security footage of how the IED came to be in this soda machine? Why aren’t there any reports of stolen Astrolite, or licensed sales of it that match up to this batch? The gas chromatograph was pretty clear.”

“Well, your little project here scarcely answers any of this, however you came by it,” Santorelli scoffs. “Trying to blackmail the FBI is a step too far, my dear.” He turns to Cassidy. “Call security, Jana.”

Scully stares at him, hating him, thinking of what they let happen to Melissa, to Emily, to Mulder, to her. “Call my bluff, sir,” she suggests, and turns sharply on her heel to leave.

**III.**

She left rattled, feeling sticky and itchy between her shoulder blades. She rubbed the discomfort like a worry stone, to keep it nudging at her mind. Thought of Padgett’s unpleasant, ferrety face, his grating voice. Her stomach clenched at the violation she felt at his presence next to Mulder’s home, the implication that this was flattery. She took a hot shower and a quick drink, sterilizing herself on the internal and external surfaces.

And now it is time to rewrite the story.

Scully is back at Hegal Place in what feels like no time, her footfalls light on the steps. She bounds up them, in running clothes, her bright hair and eyes shielded under a baseball cap. Her gun is pancaked to her hip.

Mulder is out, she knows, because she sent him out herself for a forgotten file.

It takes her 6 seconds to pick Padgett’s lock, which is a personal record. She slips quietly inside.

“Hello,” he says, leaning against the wall.

“Get out,” she replies.

Padgett looks amused. “I live here.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you in my life. I don’t want to talk to you or listen to you or know that we are breathing the same air, do you understand? I want you gone.” The words ring in his empty rooms and the faint echo lends them an air of authority.

He steps towards her and she feels a hot surge of adrenaline.

Scully is appalled by how much she wants to shoot him. She wants to feel the gun jump in her hands, braced by her Weaver stance. She wants the burn of cordite in her nostrils. And he’s Pfaster, suddenly; he’s Gerald Schnauz.

Padgett picks up his book with a loving smile. He stares at her with longing, with an ache that sickens.

“I’m not kidding, Padgett,” she says, her own voice steadying her. “I’m giving you a week to disappear.”

“Please,” he says, holding the book out, a whine in his voice. “Just read it. You’ll understand if you read it. Here, I’ll get you a drink. Some water? Coffee?”

Scully takes the book from him, a loathsome object that taints her skin. She stares at it, thinking.

“Something stronger,” she calls to Padgett, who is padding to the kitchen. “Scotch?”

He shrugs, apologetic. “Half a bottle of vodka I think.”

Even better. “Three fingers, neat.”

Padgett returns with her drink, oily looking alcohol in a coffee mug. He licks his thumb after he passes it to her, pulls a cigarette from behind his ear.

Scully sits on the floor, book on her lap. She looks up at Padgett. “I’d feel better if you had a drink too,” she says.

He gazes at her, his childlike frankness unsettling as ever, but she can stomach him for now. He is lovesick and docile.

As soon as his back is turned, she soaks the pages in vodka, doing her best to distribute the accelerant evenly. She pretends to drink from her empty mug when he returns in a cloud of blue smoke.

Padgett squats across from her, his head cocked as he takes a meditative drag. “It’s not finished. I can’t tell you how helpful it is having you here – being able to talk with you like this.”

Scully pretends to skim the page, refusing to read it, refusing to acknowledge his fantasies about her. “Creamy thighs” catches her eye and the knot of resolve hardens in her stomach.

“Can I get a smoke?” she asks.

Padgett looks startled. “You’re a doctor,” he protests. “You run!”

She rolls her eyes, like she’s letting him in on a secret. “I’m not a saint, okay?”

He lights a cigarette, passes it to her. Scully recoils at his saliva, but takes a long drag anyway. The nicotine sings in her head.

She pulls her gun on him and drops the cigarette onto the vodka-soaked pages in the same moment. Padgett howls, reaches for the burning book.

She kicks it away, her hands steady.

Padgett is on the floor, clutching at his chest with his right hand. The flames are reflected in his eyes.

**IV.**

The business card is creased and soft from being handled so much. Scully still wonders at herself for picking it up from the passenger seat, for following it here. She thinks of the tea-cakes and vials marked with EAT ME and DRINK ME in Wonderland.

She walks down the hall on the third floor, curious and bemused. She finds it somehow peculiar that this man should require physical space. It has always seemed to her that he must simply manifest out of the ether, like a gathering storm.

Scully comes to a door, to a decision.  C.G.B. Spender, the sign reads. She takes a breath, then enters the dark confines of his office. It smells good, leather overlaid with some deep masculine scent. Sandalwood and vellum. Power.

Deeper into the rabbit hole, her host at his desk.

She feels like she must turn and run or reach forward and throttle him. But no. She has made it this far, and she is strong. Besides, he put Mulder into the world. She can be briefly civil to him for that debt. She nods, cordial.

“Agent Scully, please sit.” His voice makes her think of absinthe.

She smiles. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay.”

The man’s brow furrows. “I thought you-”

“I just came to bring you this,” Scully replies. She reaches into her pocket, pulls out the Ziploc bag of cheap plastic lighters she’d purchased.

He stares, confused.

Scully drops them on his desk. “Now you have a full supply,” she tells him. “So you can stay the hell out of my car.”

There is a spring in her step when she leaves.

**V.**

_Is this what you want for your son?_ he had asked her, and she had nearly fallen for it.

Scully sways gently as she walks, William’s duckling-fuzz hair soft against her jaw, his breath warm and damp on her neck. He makes small sucking noises in his sleep. She sings _Fais Dodo_ to him, a bit off key. Mulder had better French, and sang it well.

Her hand is already on the knob when Jeffrey knocks. She lets him in, pushes the door shut behind him after a quick scan of the hallway.

“Hello, Dana,” he says, settling onto the couch.

“Hello, Jeffrey,” she replies in a soft voice, taking a seat opposite. She doesn’t wish him any further harm.

“I know what I said was hurtful and frightening.” He is staring at his hands with either wonder or confusion. His face is very hard to read.

Scully acknowledges that this is true. She shushes William, who has begun to fret. He turns his head to peer around. “That’s your Uncle Jeffrey,” Scully says. She feels it is important to acknowledge her child’s ramshackle family.

“I didn’t mean to wake him.”

“It’s okay,” she assures him, and passes William a stuffed cat to gnaw on. “Listen, I’ve thought a great deal about what you said. And I….I have come to a difficult decision.

Jeffrey looks up, his brother’s hangdog guilt in his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he says, as though viewing a pieta.

She kisses William’s fat cheek, tugs at the toy between his teeth to make him giggle. “No reason to apologize. William isn’t going anywhere.”

The ruined face across from her appears stunned. “But I thought you unders-”

“What I understand is that letting William out of my sight is the worst possible thing I could do. So I won’t be doing that.”

Jeffrey gets to his feet, agitated. “Dana, I can’t pretend to understand what it feels like to have this choice, but my god, he’ll never know a moment’s peace. He’ll never be safe.”

She laughs, a bitter sound. “Emily never knew a moment’s peace, Jeffrey. Samantha never knew a moment’s peace. I will leave my job, my home, my family…but he’s not going anywhere without me. You think you can protect him with…with…what? A password screen? A sealed manila folder? Don’t be stupid.”

William offers the soggy cat to their visitor.

Scully meets Spender’s eyes, holds them as he accepts his nephew’s gift. She considers a moment longer, then passes him the baby as well. William presses his star-shaped hands to Jeffrey’s ruined face. Jeffrey smiles, bumps noses with him.

“Say it again,” Scully says in a low voice. “Tell me to abandon him. Tell me it’s best.”

Silence.

“Spender,” she says, louder. “Tell me.”

Tears leak out when Spender squeezes his eyes shut. “I can’t,” he breathes. He kisses William’s head.

“No,” Scully says, satisfied. “You can’t.”

* * *

 


End file.
